Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-06-19

prayers for it strikes me we shall have
need Of them. So, horses, SOP
The horses backed and plunged, but
Muller on the one side and the smooth
faced B0ef on the other dashed them with
out mercy, and at last in they went into
the river with arush. The gust had passed
now, and for q moment or two there was
renewed silence, except for the whirl Of the
water and the snakelike hiss Of the coming
rain.
For o few yards, ten or fifteen perhaps,
all went well, and then John suddenly dis
covered that they were getting into deep
water; the two leaders were evidently al
most off their legs, and could scarcely stand
against the current of the flooded river.
Damn you'll" he shouted back, there
is no drift here"
go on, 60 on, it Is al rightF' came
Muller's voice in answer.
John said no more, but, putting ont all
his strength, tried to get the horses round
| Jess turned herself on the seat to look,
and lust then came a blaze of lightning
which revealed Muller and his two COM
p~anions standing dismOunted on the bank,
the muzzles of their rifles pointing straight
at the cart.
"Oh, Godp' she screamed, they are
going to shoot u.s."
Even as the words passed her lips three
tongues of flame fiared out from the rifles
mouths, and the Zulu Mouti, sitting by
her side, pitched heavily forward on to his
head into the bottom OF the cart, while one
of the wheelers reared straight up into the
air with q shrek of agony, and came down
with a splash into the river.
And then followed a scene the horrors OF
which battles my poor pen. Overhead the
storm burst in fury, and fash after flash OF
fork, or rather of chain lightning, fell into
the river. The thunder, too, began to
crack like the trump of doom; the wind
rushed down, tearing the surface Of the
water into foam, and, catching under the
tent of the cart, lifted it clean off the
wheels, so that it began to float. Then
the two leaders, mad with fear by the fury
of the storm and the dying struggles of the
off-wheeler, plunged and tore at the traces
till they actually rent themselves loose and
vanished between the darkness overhead
and the boiling water beneath. Away
foated the cart, now touching the bottom
Il huu HUN IAuAuk VII ~ WoNSA AAhS - DONNl
oscillating this way and that, and slowly
turning round and round. Whit hoated
the dead horse, dragging down the other
wheeler beneath the wather. 1t was awful
to see his struggles in the glare Of the
lightning, but at last he sank and choked.
And meanwhile, sounding sharp and
lclear across the din and hubbub Of the
storm, came the cracking of the three rifles
whenever the flashes showed the where
abouts of the cart to the murderers on the
bank. MOuti was lying still in the bottom
on the bed-plank, a bullet between his
broad souldeTs and another in his skull;
but John felt that his life was yet whole in
him, though something had Kissed past his
face and stungit. Instinctively he reached
across the cart and drew jess on to his
knee, and covered over her, thinking dimly
that perhaps his body would protect her
from the bullets.
Rip! rip! through the wood and canvas;
phutl phut! through the air; but some
merciful power protected them, and though
one cut Johns coat and two passed through
the skirt ofJess's dress, not a bullet struck
them. And very o o the shooting began
to grow wild, and then that dense veil OF
rain came down and wrapped them so close
that even the lightning could not show
their whereabouts to the assassins on the
bank.
stop shooting" said Frank Muller;
1.-THE cart has sunk, and there is an end OF
them. No human being can have lived
through that fire and the Vaal in flood"
The two Beers ceased firing, and the
Unicorn shook his head softly and remarked
to his companion that tue damned English
people in the water could not be much
wetter than they were on the bank. II
was q curious thing to say ut such a mo-
ment, hut probably the spirit that ami.
mated the remark was not so much callOus,
ness as that which animated Cromwell
who Tipped the ink in his neighbours face
when he signed the death warrant of his
king.
The Vilderbeeste made no reply. His
conscience was oppressed; he had a touch
of imagination. He thought of the soft
fingers that had bound up his head that
morning; the handkerchief! was still
around it. Now those fingers would be
gripping at the slippery stones of the Vaal
in their death-struggle, or probably they
were already limp in death, with little
bits of gravel sticking beneath the nails.
1t was a painful thought, but he c~onsOled
himself by thinking of the warrant, and
also by the reflection that, whoever had
shot the people, he had not, for he had been
careful to fire wide of the cart every time.
Muller was also thinking of the warrant
which he had forged. He must get it back
somehow, even if
LET us take shelter under the bank
there. There is a fiat place, about fifty
yards up, where the bank lies over. Thi:
rain is drowning us. We can't up-saddlt
till it clears. must havea nip of brandy,
too. Almighty! / can see that girls face
now! the lightning shOne on it just as ]
shot. Well, she will be in heaven now,
poor thing, if English people ever go tC
heaven"
IL was the Unicorn who spoke, and the
Yilderbeeste made no reply, but advanced
with him to where the horses stood. They
took the patient brutes that were waiting
for their masters, their heads well dOwI
T and the water streaming from them, anC
led them along with them. Frank Muller
stood by his own horse thinking, anC
watched them vanish into the gloom. How
was he to get that warrant back without
dy eng his hands even redder than they
were?
As he thought, an answer came. FO
at that moment, accompanied by a fearful
thunderclap, there shot from the storm
!, overhead, which had now nearly passeC
away, one of those awful flashes that some
|, times end an African tempest. 1t lit VI
the whole scene round as light as day, and
!, right in the white heart of it Muller saw
his two companions in crime and theil
horses a the great king saw the men in the
, furnace. They were about forty pace:
from HIN, on the crest Of the bank. HI
saw them, one moment erect; the next
, men and horses falling this way and that
prone to the earth. And then it was al
dark again. He staggered with the shock
and when it had passed rushed to the spot
/ calling the men by namei but 40 answer
; came, except the echo of his voice. HI
, was there now, and the moonlight began Il
struggle family through the rain. 1t
| pale beams lit upon two outstretched forms
-one lying on its hack, its distorted
features gazing up to heaven, the other OF
/ its face. By them, the legs of the neares
sticking straight into the air, lay the tive
horses. They had all gone to their account